Weekly Dish

make granita! That’s what we’ve been doing at our house, anyway, and it’s keeping the end-of-summer doldrums at bay. For now, anyway. It isn’t that we’re sad to see the change in weather, or the start of school, or new work routines; beginnings are usually exciting to all of us. But they also inevitably mean the endings to other things, and summer, for our little family, is a season we are sad to leave. It affords us the time and space to be together that just isn’t possible during the busy schoolyear, and we relish the long days and later-than-usual nights spent at the park, the water fountain downtown, or just walking in our neighborhood.

We will also be sad when the watermelons are no longer lined up in neat rows beside Mr. Buddy’s Plantation Pecan table at the Farmer’s Market. Josie loves to bend down and touch each round green fruit, until she finds just the right one for us to take home. A whole watermelon goes a long way for just three people, and sometimes, despite our best intentions, we end up with a tupperware container full of cubes that have lost their freshness.

I am happy to report, however, that we do not have to say goodbye to the mushy watermelon when it’s no longer fit for eating plain; this recipe is just the thing to transform past-its-prime mush into summer deliciousness. It also does a number on a melon that, even fresh, is just so-so (which happens sometimes when you let a two-year-old pick the one you take home).

The granita is so simple — just watermelon, lime juice, mint, and a little sugar — but it is a really fun thing to have stashed in the freezer. The mint and lime boost the watermelon flavor with a hint of contrast, and you can add as much or as little sugar as the melon needs, or to suit your taste. You could freeze the mixture in popsicle molds if you have them, but plain old ice trays and a metal baking pan worked just fine too.

We try not to keep junk food in the house, and we often have plain, fresh fruit for dessert, which usually suits us all just fine (well, except for David, who really needs chocolate after dinner to thrive). It is so nice to have a special treat, though, especially for those two-year-old moments, the ones where she’s demanding something completely absurd with all of the drama she can muster (you know, like, “Go go library RIGHT NOW,” when the library, is in fact, closed). Watermelon popsicles make a nice bartering chip. And, a bonus? The ice cubes are also heavenly when placed in a glass with club soda and coconut rum. You know, in case you need to barter with someone older than two.

I can’t believe it, but this week marks the four-year anniversary of this little site. I also can’t believe that I started this blog the exact same week I began a Ph.D. program (did I really think I would need to find something else to do?!) At any rate, I’m grateful to have this record of our time here and a little history of how I’ve grown as a cook. Most of all, though, I’m thankful that this space has brought so many friends, old and new, together over these last years. Many, many thanks to all of you who’ve visited, commented, and cooked from the recipes here; it has brought me much joy to have fellow food-lovers to share my cooking adventures with. When life gives you mushy or mediocre watermelon, may you always find a way to make granita. In our household, we think that can make all the difference.

Watermelon-Lime Granita

Half a medium-sized seedless watermelon, flesh cut into chunks (about 12 cups of loosely packed chunks, yielded about 8 cups of juice)
Juice of 3 limes
handful of mint
about a 1/2 cup sugar (this completely depends on the flavor of the melon)
Dash of salt

In a blender, puree the watermelon chunks in batches. As you finish one blender-full, pour the juice into a 9 x 13 metal baking pan. On the last go-round, add the lime juice, mint, sugar (start with about 1/3 cup), and salt. Stir this batch thoroughly into the pan of juice. Taste. If you need more sugar or lime, transfer a little juice back to the blender to adjust. Continue until it tastes like you’d like to drink it straight, on the rocks (which I highly recommend, especially if you happen to have coconut rum to add). Once you’ve got the taste as you like it, pour off enough juice so that the baking pan is no more than 2/3 full, less if you want it to freeze more quickly.* Place in the freezer, uncovered. Stir every half-hour or so for the first couple of hours, then freeze solid (this takes about 3 hours, but we never make it that long; ours is always a little slushy). Scrape out with a spoon to serve.

*The extras make fun popsicles if you have some spare small plastic or paper cups: just fill, cover with foil, and poke a wooden stick in the center. I made tiny ones for Josie in a plain old ice cube tray (without the sticks).

I started this blog because I wanted a place to write about what I love, a place to record what happens in my kitchen, and a place to share recipes with friends and family and anyone else who might find them useful. Since Josie, it isn’t just that it’s difficult to take the time to write (which it is). It’s that the whole way I cook has changed with a little person around, and I haven’t figured out how to share that process. It’s not necessarily that I cook different kinds of foods; for the most part, Josie eats what we eat, and is happy to do so. It is more about what actually happens during the cooking, a juggling act which involves very little measuring and a good deal of haste; hungry toddlers are grouchy creatures. What that means is that when it’s over each night, I generally have no idea what happened, much less recipe notes or photographs to show for it. If I tried to give you a peek into our kitchen window, most days you’d have to stand on your tiptoes to see over the piles of vegetables, a trail of plastic bowls and cups “washed” by Josie, and the tangle of books, paper, and markers that follow us from room to room. But amidst the mess, cooking is happening every day, which seems like a tiny miracle all by itself.

Corn and tomatoes are farmer’s market staples for our family during the summer months, as I imagine they are for many of you who try to eat seasonally and locally. Sometimes I find myself staring at yet another heaping pile of shiny red globes or tripping over the bag of yet-to-be-shucked corn in the corner of the kitchen wondering how on earth I will ever find a way to use them creatively. To help solve that existential crisis, I’ve been assembling a collection of recipes: a dozen ears of corn and a box of tomatoes (somewhere between 3 and 5 pounds) come home with us every Saturday, and sometimes one or both ingredients will form the center for a whole week’s worth of meals. So I thought I’d share a bit about what some of those meals look like while I remember. With a little extra prep the night before, these dinners are not terribly fancy, but they are economical, fairly easy to make, and the one, unfailing qualification in my kitchen: delicious enough to enjoy for dinner and lunch the next day.

Day One: usually, I try to cook and use the corn as quickly as possible; the farmer I buy it from has picked it the day before, but once harvested, the sugars start to break down, and the corn starts to lose its flavor. (It’s still good after day 3, but best before that). If I want to make a dinner where the main event is the flavor of the corn, that usually happens on Monday. One such recipe that’s all about sweet, fresh corn is a very simple soup.

This recipe is based on Sara Foster’s Summer White Corn Soup. The genius of the recipe is the broth: while you’re preparing everything else, you put a big pot of water on to boil, add the stripped corn cobs, basil stems, onion trimmings, and a palmful of salt. The boiling water leeches out all of the vegetable’s goodness, so that the finished soup tastes of little else but sweet summer corn. I make twice as much as I need for the soup and reserve it for corn and tomato risotto later in the week.

I serve the soup with crusty bread, rubbed with butter and garlic, and a big salad. For company or a special occasion, I like to top the soup with boiled shrimp.

Sweet Summer Corn Soup
–adapted from Sara Foster, Fresh Everyday

6 ears sweet corn, shucked and stripped from the cobs, cobs reserved
1/2 cup milk
1 T. butter
1 T. olive oil
1 sweet onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, chopped
2 small new potatoes, scrubbed and chopped
4 cups corn broth (see method below)
coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
1/2 cup fresh basil leaves, thinly sliced

First, start the broth: in a large stock pot, cover the stripped corn cobs, basil stems, and onion and garlic trimmings with 4 quarts of water. Sprinkle with 2 teaspoons of salt and a couple of grinds of black pepper. Bring to a boil, and then reduce the heat to a simmer. It will reduce quickly, so keep an eye on it; if it reduces by more than half, add more water. You should end up with about 2 quarts of broth.
Meanwhile, put the corn kernels in a small saucepan with the milk. Heat gently over medium heat, just until the milk bubbles and foams. Reduce the heat and simmer for another 5-7 minutes. Set aside to cool.

In a larger saucepan, heat the oil and butter over medium, and add the onion. Cook until very soft and beginning to turn golden, about 15 minutes. Stir in the garlic and cook for another minute or two. Add the chopped potato, 4 cups of broth, and half of the basil. Turn the heat up to medium-high. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, and taste. Add more if it needs it. When it begins to boil, turn it down to a simmer and cook for another 20 or 30 minutes, until the potato is soft enough to mash with a fork.

Next, puree half of the corn-milk mixture in a food processor or blender. Stir the puree into the soup, and add the remaining corn and milk. Salt as needed, and serve with the remaining basil leaves sprinkled on top. The leftover corn broth will keep in the fridge for a week or so, and indefinitely in the freezer.

Not many people envy the suffocating August heat that cloaks southern Louisiana in a perpetual swirl of steam — of this much, I am sure. But with that steamy heat comes another sort of coat, a wild, hairy, green one. As the sun and rain work their steamy magic, the growing things in these parts seem to go a bit mad. The jasmine vines on our deck appear to grow inches overnight, the basil replenishes its pinched stems within what seem like hours, and the grass erupts in a wild, verdant party every few days or so, despite the best efforts of my lawn-tending husband. The green simply cannot be stopped.

Josie, for her part, is happiest to join right into the green chaos, scampering to the door first thing in the morning, itching to get outside and dig in the dirt. She is so clearly her father’s daughter.

What this means for cooking of course, is that it needs to be both quick (too hot for stove-standing) and alive; our bodies seem to long for food that echoes the green of the ground. One of the simplest ways we’ve captured that greenness lately is with this so-easy preparation for green beans — blanched to slightly soften their crunch, and then tossed with butter, toasted cashews, and honey. Salty and sweet, with that fresh-from-the-garden bite, these beans often find themselves alongside other simply prepared vegetables for a veritable summer garden feast at our house. They also make a lovely heat-of-the-afternoon snack, rewarmed from the fridge, and excellent fodder for a baby learning to explore all kinds of foods.
In any case, I am happy to be taking enough breaks from exam-writing to enjoy the lush end-of-summer growth outside my backdoor, even if just to watch my daughter play in the dirt. I hope one day she will learn to coax living things from it like her dad does. Maybe she’ll even be in charge of our first crop of green beans. Until then, at least she’s happy to eat them.

Green Beans with Cashews and Honey

1 pound fresh green beans
3 T. butter
1/2 cup salted cashews, coarsely chopped
2 T. honey
Coarse salt, to taste

Wash the green beans and snap off the tough ends. Blanch in salted boiling water for just a few minutes, no more than 5. Drain the beans and set aside.

Melt the butter over medium heat, swirling to prevent burning. When it starts to turn the slightest bit golden, add the cashews and cook, stirring, for several minutes, until the nuts are fragrant and beginning to brown. Add the honey, and stir until it melts, another couple of minutes.
Return the beans to the pot, stirring to coat evenly with the sauce. Sprinkle with coarse salt and serve immediately.

–From Come On In! Recipes from the Jackson Junior League, Jackson, MS

Finally, air I can breathe.

This has been a cool week for September in Louisiana: nothing drastic, mind you, but a hint, an ever-so-slight breeze, whispering the promise of seasonal change. And a hint is all I need to breathe deeply on my walks through campus, filling my lungs with air that is lightened by the chill it carries, leaving behind that old, saggy heaviness of late, damp summer. At least for a time, and a time I plan to enjoy.

That’s the thing I both love and hate about weather in the Deep South: it is always likely to change. People around here often say that if you don’t like the weather today, just wait around for a week or so. That seems especially apt advice during this in-between season, the space in the calendar when summer can’t really decide whether she’s ready to give up her time yet, and autumn is gently edging her way in, one tiny, cool breath at a time, as if waking slowly from a long, sweet dream. For the next several weeks, it will likely be hot, hot, and then cooler in the mornings, rainy some afternoons, hot again, and then cooler still, until, one morning, I’ll wake up, and there will be leaves covering my front walk, and I’ll grab a jacket on my way out the door.

Perhaps it’s because of the seasons that change comes so slow to this part of the world, this sometimes-sleepy bastion of a certain staunch resistance to tomorrow looking too different from today. Autumn had best ease her way in without too much fuss; otherwise, folks might start to get nervous. There are good and bad things about this quality, of course, but being a person who thrives in the middle ground — I may be labeled many things, but an extremist is not likely to be one of them — I particularly like the gradual approach of a new season. It gives me time to anticipate, time to say goodbye to the last of the long, hot days, time to reflect on just how lovely it is to feel that extra spring in my step that a cool nip in the air brings with it.

It also gives me time to make the most of the last of the summer harvest, little signals to remind me that the produce at the market will come in different hues and shapes in the coming weeks, and I’d better enjoy what’s here now, while it lasts.

Some people, I know, have that exact complaint against eating locally and seasonally: because we, in this country especially, are so used to having what we want when we want it, we don’t much care for being told that we can’t have tomatoes in January. And so, our supermarkets ship in tasteless, mealy, pinkish shadows of fruit to meet their consumer demand, losing any connection to the rhythms of an earth that produces in cycles, that figures time in spirals, rather than in one, straight continuous line.

I am as guilty of this mentality as anyone else when it comes to certain things; I’d have to make some serious adjustments to my cooking if I had to do without, say, lemons, or avocados for any extended period of time. But when it comes to what’s available at my local farmer’s market, I’m pretty committed to buying what’s in season while it lasts and then going without until its season returns. If this sounds like a big sacrifice, it really isn’t: after feasting on summer-ripe tomatoes, my tastebuds would refuse the supermarket variety anyway — seasonal, local principles or no.

One of my favorite things to savor while it makes its brief appearance at the market are sweet, fresh figs. For me, figs are one of those lovely seasonal surprises: when the heat around here becomes nearly too much to bear, on those Saturday mornings when I look out at the already-blazing sun and hesitate to venture out for our weekly market trip, I remember those baskets piled high with luscious fruit that only comes around once a year. Most of the time, I ration them throughout the week, slicing up a few here and there to eat with only a tiny dribble of cream, or to top a simple salad with arugula, pecans and blue cheese, and I time myself to run out just as Saturday rolls around again. But, for the last batch or two, as the summer tinges towards twilight and the light begins to carry flecks of autumn’s amber hues, I treat my figs just a little more decadently.

This time around, the lovely Ivonne at Cream Puffs in Venice called for fig desserts just as the last of the fresh figs were appearing at my market, giving me ample reason to cloak these late summer jewels in a heady syrup of balsamic vinegar and sweet vermouth. To balance their deep, dark flavor, I whipped up a feathery pile of mascarpone cheese lightly scented with vanilla and honey. This recipe makes just enough for two, and since I am the only fig-lover in our house, I savored the whole batch, right down to the last drop of syrup (not in one sitting, of course).

Savor is also what I plan to do with these in-between days: Josie and I are enjoying late afternoons in the hammock, mornings in the swing, and midday walks around the neighborhood. The best and worst thing about these days — like the figs I love so much — is that they won’t last forever, so there’s nothing to do but drink in as much of the blue, blue expanse of twilight before it fades to night. The best news of all, though, is that if you miss your chance to dwell in the in-between, to savor the last of the seasonal fruit before its time is up, the season will return.

If figs are any indication, it will taste sweeter for the waiting.

This simple little dessert is my entry for this month’s Sugar High Friday, hosted by my fellow fig-lover, Ivonne.

Glazed Figs with Honey-Vanilla Mascarpone

This is the perfect dessert to serve after dinner: whip up the mascarpone and cook the figs and syrup before you serve the meal, and by the time you’re ready for something sweet, the figs will have cooled and the syrup will have thickened considerably. You can serve this hot, but I liked it better at room temperature.

10-12 figs, stemmed and halved
1 T. butter
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 T. balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup vermouth, port, or other sweet wine
1/4 cup mascarpone cheese
1/2 t. vanilla extract
1/2 t. honey

In a heavy-bottomed skillet, melt the butter over medium heat until it bubbles (but don’t let it brown). Add the figs, cut side down, and sprinkle with the sugar. Let it cook for a minute or two, shaking the pan to evenly distribute the sugar. Take care not to agitate the figs too much to make sure they keep their shape. Pour the vinegar and wine on top and cook for 7-10 minutes more, swirling the pan often, until the mixture is reduced by half. Remove from the heat and let the figs and syrup rest (the mixture will continue to thicken as it sits).

Meanwhile, mix the mascarpone, vanilla, and honey in a small bowl until thoroughly incorporated. To serve, place a scoop of the mascarpone in the center of a plate. Surround with figs and syrup. Serves 2.

–Adapted from Sara Foster, Fresh Every Day.

Right after Josie was born, friends in our life brought us food. An age-old expression of community, in many cultures, neighboring women gather around a new mother to tend to the household chores — cooking and cleaning while Mom gets to know her new baby. My mother and sister stayed a few days after Josie’s birth, and I was fortunate to have my husband here all the time — he too is on an academic schedule and so was off for the summer. Still, figuring out what to make for dinner was not exactly the first thing on our minds, so after my mom left, meals prepared by other hands were a huge help.

The first week, my Aunt Anne, who lives in Baton Rouge, brought a big pot of chicken and dumplings, which she calls love food. And they were: homey and warm and delicious, they fed us for nearly a week, and I swear, I could feel my body healing as I ate them. The next week, our friend Kathryn rallied the troops from our Sunday School class to provide meals.

When we lived in Jackson, as one of the only childless couples in a Sunday School class for young marrieds, we cooked a lot of food for new parents. I loved doing it: not only do you get to meet a need for someone, but you also get to go and hold a brand new baby. In fact, I often signed up to take food to people I didn’t know very well, and we met some of our best friends that way. What I didn’t know then is how important that service is: when you’re exhausted and physically recovering and emotionally focused on figuring out how to be parents, food cooked by someone else just tastes better. It becomes more than just physical sustenance; to be really cliche, it ministers to your soul.

And, so, when Kathryn showed up with a simple grilled chicken salad right when my body was craving something green and fresh, and Felicia and Ed dropped off a homey casserole just in time to feed us for a whole weekend, and Sarah brought Italian food the day I had been dreaming of the perfect marinara (which hers was), I felt overwhelmed with love — all through the food I put into my body.

It was more than that, of course — all of these people are dear to us, and it is a wonderful thing to hand over your newborn baby to a friend and watch as she holds the baby’s face close to hers to smell that new baby smell or kisses the top of your baby’s still-soft head or touches tiny fingers and tiny toes in awe of the miracle of new life.

In fact, one of our first friends to bring dinner is one we met through her new baby. Our first Sunday at a new church in a new city, nearly 2 years ago, we sat in front of a couple with a tiny little baby girl wrapped in a beautiful blanket. I will never forget that Sunday because as we walked to the front of this strange sanctuary for communion, I found myself standing right beside this woman and her baby. And I couldn’t take my eyes off of that little face — with the light streaming in from the stained glass windows, she looked like an angel. And, so after the service was over, the couple introduced themselves, and we exchanged phone numbers and, since then, Billy and Garland have become some of our dearest friends.

So, when Garland arrived with black bean quesadillas and a huge container of wonderful, fresh salsa, I wanted to cry — it was just our kind of food, which she knew, and it felt like the continuity in a great big circle of community. When their daughter, Wilhelmina, was a newborn and we were just beginning our friendship with them, David and I kept the baby a few times and cooked for them a few times, and tried to make sure they were occasionally getting out of the house without the little one in tow. Walking with them through the first year of Wilhelmina’s life prepared us for parenthood in ways we couldn’t have imagined at the time: we’ve watched them figure out what to feed her as she started on solid food, how to manage discipline and bedtime routines and, most recently, potty training. Since Josie has been here, they have loved us in so many tangible ways — we have their car seat and their infant swing and their batting gym and plastic bins full of Wilhelmina’s adorable clothes.

A couple of weeks ago, on a Sunday when the temperature had nearly reached 100 degrees, our air conditioner went out. Spoiled as we are by modern conveniences, being stuck in a small house with windows that are painted shut and a sweaty 3-month-old felt like a major catastrophe. After a couple of hours as the thermostat inside climbed towards the 90-degree mark, we called Billy to see if Josie and I could come over for a while to cool off. Garland was out of town, so Billy had Wilhelmina by himself, and Garland’s sister and her daughter were also staying at their house. In the midst of all of that, he persuaded us to come and stay until the air conditioner got fixed. He changed the sheets on their bed, set up a portable crib for Josie in their room, and insisted that we make ourselves at home.

That kindness is the sort that, even after you’ve known someone for a long time, still manages to be surprising and remarkable — perhaps because it is so rare in a culture of busyness and self-sufficiency. It is also the sort that gets communicated in the gifts of food. Long after Garland’s satisfying meal, I found myself thinking about it, especially the salsa. I’m sure partly because nursing a baby causes your body to crave good, fresh, real food. But also, I think, I also craved the care that went into making it: the thoughtfulness it took for Garland to know me well enough to know that I would love it.

And, so I’ve recreated it in a myriad of variations, depending on what I have on hand and what I’ve found at the farmer’s market. Each time I do, it tastes better — not as good as I remember hers tasting, but really good still — packed with fresh, clean flavors and a healthy dose of the sweet memory of kindness.

Exactly what friendship — and the food it brings — should taste like.

Peach Salsa

2 ripe peaches, diced
2 avocados, diced
1 bunch cilantro, rough chopped
2 hot peppers (I used hot banana peppers here, but I’ve also used jalapenos), finely chopped (I leave the seeds for spice, but if you’re sensitive to heat, remove them before chopping)
1 small cucumber, finely chopped
1/4 cup finely chopped red onion (about 1/4 of a medium one)
Juice of 1 lime
Sea salt, to taste

Toss together the peaches, avocados, peppers, cucumber, and onion. Squeeze the lime juice over and sprinkle with sea salt. Toss gently to combine. Serve with chips or quesadillas. I imagine it would also be a nice accompaniment to grilled fish or shrimp.

*Ivonne and Lis are hosting the second annual Festa al Fresco; this salsa would be the perfect thing to take to an outdoor gathering. But, I’ll have to warn you, here in Louisiana, a virtual patio party is the only kind I’d be willing to attend: it is still way, way too hot to spend more than the time it takes to get from front door to car outdoors. But, if I were in Toronto…that would be a different story.

In my adult life, I have had to learn to like many foods I snubbed as a child. Vegetables of all kinds, wheat bread, and eggs, just to name a few. I was a very picky eater.

One kind of food I never turned down, however, is fruit. My mom kept a bowl of apples, oranges, and bananas, and one of her favorite snacks was a ripe banana, sliced and covered with ice-cold milk. To this day, that is still the basic treatment most fruits in my house receive — I still love bananas and milk; strawberries and figs get a splash of cream; and tropical fruits like mango and pineapple, a drizzle of coconut milk. But my favorite fruit and fat combination is peaches and cream.

Perhaps it’s because peaches remind me so much of summer — after mornings at the pool, Mom would often drive us over to Landrum’s produce stand to buy the freshest ones our small town had to offer. It could also be that a version of peaches and cream has been my standard birthday dessert for as many years as I can remember. Whatever the reason, my passion for peaches has not wavered over the years, and one of the most welcome signs of summer here in Louisiana for me are the peaches that appear on Mr. Buddy Miller’s table at our Saturday farmer’s market.

Oh, sure, I occasionally throw them into a hot dessert, a crisp or a cobbler, and recently, I made them into preserves. But, truth be told, the freshest summer peaches at the height of their season should not be cooked. My mom said once that it hurts her feelings to see a fresh peach exposed to heat, and although I’ve been known to do it, I have to say that I agree.

Mom loves fruit as much as I do — that’s probably where I learned it — so when I started thinking of an appropriate birthday dessert to finish the dinner my siblings and I made to celebrate my parents’ lives last weekend, I had peaches on my mind. Because my parents were born only nine days apart, we almost always celebrate their birthdays together. This year, we volunteered to cook Sunday lunch, a job they have done joyfully for all our lives. And, I wanted to end our meal with birthday desserts both Mom and Dad would enjoy.

When it comes to sweets, Dad is easy: chocolate, chocolate, and more chocolate. In fact, last weekend, when my sister got out all of the ingredients to make his cake, she discovered that he’d eaten two squares of her baking chocolate. We had to substitute chocolate chips. Mom, on the other hand, is not so easy to pin down. She won’t come out and tell you what she wants because she doesn’t want you to go to any trouble on her behalf. Elizabeth did manage to get out of her that she might like something fruity, and this time of year in this part of the country, that means peaches.

I wanted something simple, a dessert designed to showcase the summer-fresh flavor of the fruit, and a way to pair it with a creamy texture. I ended up with a tart, a crumbly butter crust that fell apart, a layer of this creamy filling, and layers of fresh, sweet peaches. It tasted heavenly, but because the crust didn’t hold up, it wasn’t very pretty to look at after we cut it. The surprise sta of the show, though, was this simple creamy concoction — nothing fancy, but when paired with the bright, sunny sweetness of the peaches, it does its job: it brings out the best of the peach flavor. It’s so simple to mix up that I’ve been keeping some in my fridge for afternoon snacks. A bit decadent, perhaps, but summer won’t last for ever. Though, to be outside in Louisiana right now, you’d never know it; the heat is abysmally oppressive. So, if I indulge in an afternoon of cold peaches and cream now and again to try to combat that heat, I’ll call it enjoying what’s left of my summer. Which, as school starts next week, is quickly coming to a close. At least I have some peaches left to ease the transition.

Johanna, of The Passionate Cook, asked for local or regional specialties for this month’s edition of Sugar High Friday. This peach cream makes the best use of local peaches and is a tribute to the way we ate fruit in my house growing up. Call peaches and cream the local specialty of my childhood home.

Peach Cream

8 oz. sour cream
2 T. peach jam
2 T. brown sugar
1/2 t. vanilla

Whisk all ingredients together. Serve over fresh peaches, or spread in a baked pie shell with sliced fresh peaches on top.

In one of the many notebooks scattered around my house, there’s a page inside with these words written at the top: “Things to Do When School Is Out (Before the Baby Comes).” The list is lo-o-ong. And crazily ambitious.

#3: Reorganize office. (If you’d ever seen my office, this would make you laugh out loud.)

#9: Finish thank you notes. (I’m still working on this one.)

#14: Decide on dissertation topic. (Right. At the most emotional and indecisive time in my life, I should, really, have been finalizing plans for a dissertation. Good idea. Hormones really do make you crazy.)

Needless to say, since Josie came almost 2 weeks early, born on my very last day of school, not many of the numbers on the list have x’s through them. Some of the projects can wait, others we’ve tended to as we’ve found the time.

One item on the list, however, needed to be done that week. #7: Make strawberry jam.

This wouldn’t have been such a big deal, except that I’d bought a whole flat of strawberries the Saturday before, expressly for jam-making purposes. It turns out, it was the last Saturday strawberries appeared at my farmer’s market. I know it may sound silly, but when I came home from the hospital, I was really worried about those berries. Not necessarily the money we’d spent on them, but I knew the season was at it’s end, and I couldn’t bear the thought of those last, precious berries going to waste in my fridge.

You have to understand: I ate strawberries nearly every day of my pregnancy. The first crop appeared around November, just as I was starting my second trimester and becoming very, very hungry. And, for the next 6 months, I bought 2 pints (at least) every Saturday morning, and every afternoon for the rest of the week, I would take a break from whatever I was working on, slice a bowlful of berries and douse them with sugar and cream. Like clockwork, I ate them every day.

Every Saturday, the farmer from whom I bought so many berries would ask me how I was feeling, and smile his big, friendly smile. One Saturday in late April, he asked me how much longer I had. He told me he’d been watching me every week and that he could tell my baby was near to coming into the world. It’s quite remarkable how much the visible signs of carrying life will open up venues of conversation; I swear, anyone will talk to a pregnant woman. That Saturday, he also told me that there were only a few weeks of strawberries left.

And, so I added #7 to my list and resolved to enjoy the strawberry season for the rest of the year.

But, as luck would have it, when the strawberries in my fridge were ready to be jammed, I was in no condition to sterilize jars or stand in front of the stove. So, one afternoon, my sweet mother and husband hulled them and put them in the freezer.

“One day, you’ll feel like making jam,” they told me consolingly. “Then, the berries will be waiting.”

And, waiting they have been. Finally, last week, I thawed out those strawberries, sterilized the jars, and I made jam.

While I was at it, I also made pear preserves with the box of pears David’s grandmother sent our way, pear pepper jelly with the fruit of our insanely productive jalapeño bush, and peach preserves with the last of the peach crop from our farmer’s market.

Once I started, I felt so industrious that I couldn’t stop. Plus, it was delicious. The pear preserves are, admittedly, too sweet. They were the first batch I made, and I overdid it with the sugar. For the pepper jelly, I adjusted the sugar, but I underestimated the fire of the peppers: it is hot, hot. Delicious with cheese and crackers, but hot nonetheless. The peach preserves could have cooked a bit longer, but they are bursting with bright, peach flavor, which is what I wanted from that batch.

But the strawberry. The strawberry is perfect. I put the whole batch in the blender because I wanted a really smooth texture, and I added a hint of vanilla — not so much that you really taste it, but just enough to punch up the berry flavor just a notch, so that at the end of the burst of strawberry, you’re left with something else, something rich and mellow.

And, I love it. So much so that now, instead of berries in a bowl, I have berries on toast, and I have to say, it feels good to have strawberries back in my life again. Which is, after all, the beauty of preserving: enjoying the fruits of the season all year long. Or, at least until the jam runs out.

It’s a good thing November isn’t so very far away.

Vanilla-Scented Strawberry Jam

1 quart strawberries, hulled*
2 1/4 cups sugar
1/2 T. pure vanilla extract
Pinch of salt

Place the strawberries, whole, or cut into chunks (this depends entirely on what kind of texture you want: I knew I would puree mine, so I left them whole) into a large pot. Toss the berries with the vanilla and salt and cover with the sugar. Leave to macerate for several hours.

Bring the berries and sugar to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, very gently. Simmer for about 15 minutes, just until the berries are tender. Skim any foam off the top as they simmer. Turn off the heat and allow to cool completely. Put the mixture into the blender and blend until smooth. Return to pot and cover; let the jam sit overnight.

The next day, bring the mixture back to a boil, stirring carefully so as not to burn what’s on the bottom. Simmer for another 20 minutes. Skim off any additional foam, and ladle into sterilized jars. Seal the jars with lids and rings; process according to manufacturer’s directions. Makes about 6 8-ounce jars of jam.

–Adapted from The Gift of Southern Cooking by Edna Lewis and Scott Peacock

*I measured the berries after they were hulled; they filled a 1-quart glass measuring cup.

This summer, my sister came to stay with us. Nine years my junior, Elizabeth is the baby of our family; our two brothers occupy the middle territory, sisters flanked on either end. That makes me the oldest. By the time baby number four came along, my parents were well into the throes of a life structured around sporting seasons: our white mini-van scooted from one field to the next, and later, one town to the next, as my brothers batted and kicked and threw their way through boyhood and on into adolescence.

So, soon after my eighth birthday, when my mom announced that a baby was on the way, I faithfully knelt beside my bed every night and prayed for a sister. Now, as is true of most siblings I’m sure, there were certainly days I understood why people often said you should be careful what you wish for. Especially as I ventured into the teenage years with a toddler close on my heels, prying into my make-up cabinet, my telephone conversations, and my many purses, I often wondered what in the world I’d been thinking. Compounding the dissonance caused by our age gap, she moved into my room right about the time I started high school. She was seven, went to bed early, and wanted to sleep as bodily close to me as possible. I was sixteen, cultivating a fierce independence, and wanted nothing more than to be left alone.

Then, I left for college, and somewhere along the way, we became the greatest of friends. We’ve tried to retrace our steps, to figure out where and how we made the transition, but now, it’s hard for me to remember a time we didn’t talk often about any and everything.

When she decided that she wanted to be around for the first few months of my daughter’s life, I was delighted. When she said she’d also like to learn her way around the kitchen while she was here, I was even more excited. David and I have taken turns teaching her what we know and what we like to make — she and David have made biscuits, loaves and loaves of bread, scones of several kinds, and stacks of cookies. My contributions to her culinary prowess tend to lean more towards the dinner side of things: at my request, she’s made risotto, crab cakes, shrimp scampi, and scads of salads. She’s gotten better at slicing and dicing, become quite adept at simply dressing a salad, and learned her way around a frying pan.

Mostly, though, she’s cultivating her taste in food, which, as far as I can tell, is one of the best ways to ensure success in the kitchen: to know what tastes good. She comes back from our grocery store with a pungent, creamy wedge of blue cheese and a crisp apple, or slices up an avocado and tops it with a squeeze of lemon and a good handful of salt. True, when it comes down to the doing, she’s more baker and I’m more cook — she’s precise and measured to my haphazard and experimental. But what we share is a love of simple, fresh ingredients, enhanced by other simple, fresh ingredients, and that means that either of us can go into the kitchen and whip up a quick snack or meal that the other one will love.

This salad requires neither great skill nor great know-how, but I have to tell you, when Elizabeth and I threw it together as one of the last summer lunches we’d share, it felt like a most fitting end to the time we’d invested in sharing kitchen space.

What remains true for me — and one of the things I love most about cooking — is that the creation of food means the creation of memories. When Josie is older and I tell her stories of her first summer in this world, those stories will involve Harry Potter, her dad’s manic baking, her Aunt Elizabeth at the stove, and a kitchen full of love and laughter.

And that, friends, is what summers, kitchens, and sisters are made for.

A word about salads and dressings: every cook certainly has her salad preferences, and I tend to be rather finicky about mine. I like the greens salted, rather than the dressing (so no salt in my dressing recipe). And, I’d just as soon have as much “topping” as greens, so the fruit/vegetable/cheese combination carries its fair share of weight. Also, I prefer a tangy dressing to an oily one, so my proportions may seem a bit off. Most vinaigrette recipes call for twice as much oil as vinegar, but that’s too much oil for my taste. Adjust as you see fit.

Sisters Summer Salad

Salad greens, to cover two plates
1 peach, diced
1 avocado, diced
2 handfuls sea salt
A healthy smattering of cracked black pepper
2 ounces of creamy blue cheese
Balsamic vinaigrette (recipe follows)

Lay half of the peach and avocado on each bed of greens; sprinkle liberally with salt and pepper (the cracked pepper really makes this salad — don’t skip this step!) Scatter the blue cheese atop each salad and drizzle with vinaigrette. Enjoy with someone you love a lot (like your sister).

Simple Balsamic Vinaigrette

1/4 cup good balsamic vinegar
2 T. honey
1/3 cup olive oil

Whisk the vinegar and honey vigorously to incorporate. Drizzle the oil slowly into the vinegar mixture, whisking all the while.

One true thing about having a baby: you spend a lot of your waking hours feeding your little one. Which, for nursing moms, means a good portion of the day in a stationary position with little else to do but sit still. Oh, of course, there are the times when I just stare at her ears and her faintly receding hairline and long eyelashes like her dad’s and her chubby toes. But there’s only so much staring a girl can do in a day’s time, especially when the days stretch into weeks and weeks into months, and, well, you get the picture.

Lucky for me, I happened to time my child’s birth with the publishing of the last Harry Potter book. I read the first one ages ago, but since then, my husband has been the fan in the family. He’s read all 6 of the series, while it seems like I started the second one and never quite finished it. So, I decided now would be a good time to finish the second one and read straight on through to this last one. In case you’ve never held a hardback copy of one of the books in your hands, let me tell you, that’s a lot of pages.

As luck would have it, it happens that I’ve had some idle time on my hands, perfect for catching up on the workings of the magical world. Because I’ve read them consecutively and in such a short span of time, I’ve been working up to serious anxiety about the last book. You see, I am an ending kind of girl. Not that every story has to end in a happily ever after, mind you, but it must end properly, the right way, with closure and finality. Investing so much time in Harry and his friends has meant that I could be setting myself up to be disappointed. What if the series ends badly or in the wrong way or, worse yet, with things still up in the air?

Like good books and movies, meals should have satisfactory ends as well. Not every meal needs a big finale, of course, but on occasion, a sweet finish makes even the best main course even more satisfying. Most importantly, dessert signals that the eating is over: a sweet something tells your taste buds the eating is over. Closure for your mouth and your stomach, so to speak. Since I have not the time to spend all day baking nor do I need whole cakes, pies, or other large desserts lurking in my kitchen to tempt me, my meal closure has to come in small, easy-to-make portions.

These tiny fruit crumbles are just such a dessert. As long as you have good fruit, the method couldn’t be simpler: toss it with a bit of flour and sugar, top with a crumbly mixture of butter, sugar, and nuts or oats if you like, and pop it into the oven. You really can’t go wrong, and you can make two or ten, depending on your crowd (or your appetite).

I made these peach and blueberry ones at the end of a long week of feeding Josie and building up to the final Harry Potter. And, well, without spoiling anything for those of you who aren’t finished (or who haven’t started), let me just say that both the dessert and the Deathly Hallows were immensely satisfying.

They even worked well together, with a nice cup of coffee, a comfy chair, and a hungry baby — a perfectly happy ending to these summer days of baby care. So happy, in fact, that I’m thinking of starting the books over, just so I can enjoy the ending all over again. With a proper dessert, of course.

Tiny Crumbles

2 oven-proof ramekins
Fruit to fill each ramekin 3/4 full (I used peaches and blueberries)
Zest of an orange or a lemon
1 t. + 2 T. flour
1 t. + 1 T. brown sugar
1 T. butter
2 T. chopped pecans

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Toss the fruit in each ramekin with 1/2 t. each of flour and brown sugar and equal portions of the fruit zest. Mix the butter, nuts, 2 T. of flour and 1 T. of brown sugar until it’s crumbly; sprinkle evenly over each ramekin. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes, or until the top is brown and the filling bubbly around the edges.

Serve with coffee, ice cream, or a big, heavy book. Just make sure you choose one that ends well.

Because my daughter’s arrival coincided with the end of the semester (literally—I gave my final exam in the morning and went into labor that evening), I didn’t have much of a chance to wind down as I usually do, throwing myself into the kitchen and cooking furiously, in celebration of the time to do so.

No, instead, I started off my summer break with a newborn, not exactly prime conditions for having huge blocks of time to spend dawdling in the kitchen as I so pleased. But sweet little Josie did enter this world going to bed at a reasonable hour and staying asleep for a good while, which meant that once we got her to sleep, I could prepare dinner undisturbed. Not that I had a lot of energy for dinner, especially in those first few weeks, but I did itch to do something productive besides feed a baby.

So, I turned to the Farmer’s Market for inspiration and set about thinking how to accommodate our new schedule — what could be started early in the day or the night before and finished without too much time and effort after the baby was asleep? Well, salad, for starters.

And, salad worked so well that we have eaten an awful lot of it since Josie’s been in our life. I have a few basic combinations that I tweak here and there depending on what we have lying around. But since I had promised myself I’d try at least one new thing in the kitchen each week, I needed a significant variation on our old green stand-by. Shrimp are abundant and relatively inexpensive at our market this time of year, so we buy them fairly regularly. The little ones we ended up with a few weeks ago were begging to land atop some greens, so I boiled them and marinated them a day ahead of time to make easy work of assembling dinner the next night.

The idea for the marinade comes from Sara Foster, who calls these “Pickled Shrimp” because of the spice combination used to flavor them. Reminiscent of bread and butter pickles, the tangy-sweet marinade doubled as a dressing for our shrimp-topped salad. Next time, I’ll reduce the amount of sugar and marinate some vegetables along with the shrimp for an even quicker and healthier dinner assembly.

Now that I’ve gotten into the cooking groove, if I could only find some time to write about the things I make, then it wouldn’t take me 3 weeks to compose one post. At least I am finally planning our menus again (as you can see below); funny how the little things at this point seem like such big accomplishments!

What does help me to be motivated, I have to say, is all the encouragement from you sweet people who read this blog. It means much to me that after my long silences, some of you still return with heartwarming well wishes for me and my family. Especially for your kind words about Josie, I thank you.

Shrimp Scampi

Steak and cheese sandwiches

(recipe for shrimp after the jump)

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